he got 6 months for the man he hit before hitting the car my sister was in... 5 years for both surviviors(total 10 years).... 25 years for the deceased(50 years) guess what he will only have to spend 25 years because he will serve them at the sametime... yep he ruined so many lives and he gets off with only 25 years... I am so ticked off. my sister read her victims statement along with the other victims family ... he said he was sorry but showed absolutely no motion... love our justice system..............

crimes victims assistance called my sister afterwards and said the reason he only got 25 years is if they gave him 30 wich is maximum in louisiana is he could apeal it so they let him plead out... the dad of one of the ones that died told my sister if she needed anything at all let him know and they want to get together with all the victims on the anniversay of the accident. my sister doesnt want to do this. she wants to get on with her life. she still has alot of therapy and is in a wheelchair and can only walk a short distance with a walker. she has a goal of going to her sons wedding june 11 with out any help from a wheelchair or walker so she is working really hard in therapy...

I'm really sorry about what has happened to your sister and your family and the others involved. Speaking from experience, part of the getting on with your life is attending such gatherings as the father was speaking of. There is something cathartic about getting together with the survivors to honor the dead that helps you come to terms with the survivors guilt you sometimes have no idea you were carrying. I carried mine for a very long time, and it almost destroyed me. After I found a therapist who could verbalize what I needed to hear to handle it, I was able to start the healing process; but I lost a lot of good years that I will never get back.

Concurrent sentencing is common in too many states. The two men who murdered my family got 3 concurrent life sentences, eligible for parole in 20 years with good behavior. The hard part is ahead of your sister, and she will need all the support she can get. The crime against my family was in 1978, I still have to give my victim's impact statement and represent my family at the parole hearings for the surviving killer, one was killed in the Santa Fe Prison Riot. He has not been the model prisoner, he has escaped and killed again and again. But I still have to make that statement to make sure he stays behind bars where he belongs.

You could look at the flip side of this whole thing. Here in CA, a person whose first offense ends someones life, they are lucky to spend 6 years in prison. I know it is not much comfort, but your legal system is working better than ours.

If yall want to really shudder and get yer fur up google Kevin Cooper. The victims are/were friends of our family. I cannot believe that man is still allowed to breathe.

Short sentences frustrate me too. It's no comparison to what happened to your sister, but the person who stole my car had just gotten out of jail after serving 15 years for multiple robberies. He went right back in - and got 6 months, served 4 months.

He had spent very little of his life outside a jail. But even he knew how to work things - snitch on some other criminals now and again, 'help' the police now and again, act sorry, offer to apologize the the victim...

The system is very frustrating. The lawyer told me that if sentences were made longer, it would become more difficult to convict people, and more pleas would result. It seems like an unbeatable problem. I don't know the solution.

I've heard judges speak out in court and show their feelings about the pleas criminals resort to, and one even referred to a plea as 'legal ju jitsu' that 'bore absolutely no resemblance to the original charges', but he couldn't do anything about it. He had to accept the plea.

I am not sure that the people in the system (other than the criminal defense attorneys) really like how things work either. I've heard judges say things that really shocked me. I think they are very frustrated too. Some years back I witnessed a crime, but when the detectives interviewed me and showed me pictures, I simply hadn't had a clear enough view of the criminal to be sure how he looked. I think the detective tried very, very hard to conceal his feelings but I couldn't miss it. He dropped his arms by his side and implied that he was well aware who it was, but couldn't use some of the information he had in court.

I corresponded with one judge several times about a certain case. In this case it wasn't because I disliked his verdict. But he told me something that surprised me. He said that very rarely can a judge really feel like s/he has made a positive difference. He said that the case we were discussing was one of the very few cases that he felt made a positive difference. He said judges are lucky if they get ONE case like that in their lives.

I don't know if that helps, but I do feel that many in the legal system are just as frustrated as victims and families are.